One morning as he is getting dressed, the hard-working prince
of a powerful kingdom notices two red, painful spots on his thigh.
Assuming them to be the bites of a poisonous insect that had burrowed
into the royal bedclothes, he scolds his chamberlain, orders the
silk sheets burned, and without a second thought begins his routine
of palace duties.

But later that night, readying himself for bed, the prince beholds
a chilling sigh: The two bumps on his leg have turned into a pair
of curiously darting eyes! Only with great difficulty he goes
into a fitful sleep. The minute dawn breaks, he flings aside his
coverlets to inspect his leg. To his horror, not only are the
eyes still there, but now, beneath them, a pair of rhythmically
flaring nostrils! Terrified lest anyone discover his affliction,
he binds his leg with a silken bandage; ignoring the faint sound
of labored breathing (the nose seems to inhale each time he does),
he attends to the affairs of state.

That evening, at a ceremonial banquet for his vassal-warlords
from the outlying districts, he makes a pretense of merriment.
But the assembled guests are startled by a muffled shout from
beneath the table. The prince clamps his hand over his leg, nearly
losing two of his fingers in the process: His symptom has grown
a mouth!

Hastily excusing himself in the ensuing hubbub, he runs at full
tilt to his private quarters, summons the court surgeon and, swearing
him to silence, forces him to operate and cut away the face. A
miracle cure!

For several months, life returns to normal. But one day, as the
prince leads his elite horse cavalry in a wheeling close-order
drill, a furious scream erupts from nowhere: His symptom has returned
with a vengeance. The prince's mount shies and rears, landing
him in the mud. His men, hearing the secret face's strange cries,
break ranks. Rumors begin to fly through the capital that the
ruler is possessed by demons.

A second clandestine operation is performed, and a third, but
to no avail. The face relentlessly reappears. Now unable to leave
his room, the prince spends his days receiving magi and astrologers,
muttering old frauds all, while the kingdom falls into disarray.
Finally a grizzled monk in frayed saffron robes barges unannounced
into the prince's chambers. Brushing aside the hand-wringing courtiers,
he informs the prince of a stream that lies off in a corner of
a distant province, protected by Kwan Yin, the goddess of compassion.
Its miraculous waters heal all wounds. Equipped with the monk's
scrawled map, the prince sets out a small company of imperial
horsemen. After an arduous journey -- during which the face, despite
being swaddled in layers of muslin, continues its loud, inarticulate
bawling -- the party arrives at the sacred stream. Eagerly the
prince leaps form his horse and removes a silver chalice from
his gold-embroidered saddlebag.

He unwraps his leg and is about to pour the holy water on the
hated face to silence it forever, when its mouth stops shouting.
"Wait!" it cries out. "All this time, you have
never even looked closely at me nor tried to understand a single
word I have said. Do you not recognize me?"

The prince, gazing closely, suddenly recognizes a distorted likeness
of his own face, its eyes filled with a pain long unacknowledged.
At the sight of it, the prince begins to weep, and as he does
so the face begins to soften, the eyes growing limpid, melting
into those of Kwan Yin herself. "You had no heart of compassion,"
she says. "No sword of self-insight. How else could I summon
you to your true nature?" Now the courtiers, decamped at
a curious distance, heard the sound of two voices talking, long
into the night, about the secret suffering that had been disturbing
the prince's sleep long before the face had appeared. When the
sun came up, the prince had been healed -- though a single eye
would occasionally reappear and look around, just as a reminder.

Retold by Marc Barasch in The Healing Path

The Healing Path is a wonderful book about healing
filled with first and third person accounts and many suggestive
stories.
I recommend it as the best book on healing by a layperson.

First edition, autographed hardbacks are available from
healpath@aol.com, or from
Big World Books, 865 37th St., Boulder, CO 80303,
for $23 ppd. (Discounts for bulk orders and health professionals/educators).